Migaloo was trained to alert to skeletal remains with the use of a 250-year old human skeleton on loan from a museum. It took six months of training, field trials and search tests to turn her into an archaeologist. Now Migaloo can do what no humans can do, even with the assistance of radar, magnetic technology and help from historical records. She can find ancient humans bones with high reliability due to their distinct odor. It’s unclear what that odor is and many people are surprised that there is a specific odor. Perhaps that’s why some people didn’t think dogs would succeed in this sort of work.

But Migaloo has succeeded, finding human bones over 600 years old that she was able to detect at a depth of two meters. Her job is to work at sacred Aboriginal sites in Australia finding skeletal remains. Her knowledge can be used either to find places to excavate or to find and protect burial sites. Perhaps soon there will be other dogs working at sites around the world at sites of ancient civilizations.

Migaloo is rewarded for her work not with a bone of her own, but with a game of fetch.